White Christian Nationalism and Reproductive Rights: My Conversation with Joy Reid on MSNBC (Video and Talking Points)
PLUS: For paid subscribers, an invitation to a live conversation with Jim Wallis about his new book, The False White Gospel
Dear #WhiteTooLong readers,
Greetings from Tucson! This weekend, I’ll be speaking at three sessions at the Tucson Festival of Books:
Saturday, 2:30 pm: First Amendment Protections, Abuses (with Martin Barone and Barbara McQuade)
Sunday, 1:00 pm: Elusive Progress in Divided Times (with McKay Coppins and Fredrik deBoer)
Sunday, 4:00 pm: Religion’s Grip on Politics (with Tim Alberta and McKay Coppins)
I’m particularly looking forward to the final panel with Tim Alberta and McKay Coppins, both gifted writers who have long been following and reporting on events at the intersection of religion, culture, and politics for The Atlantic.
Today, I’m sharing my MSNBC appearance Thursday night with Joy Reid. I’m also trying something new. In addition to including the video of the interview, I’m including the talking points I developed in advance of it. Inevitably, what I prepare isn’t always what we cover in a live conversation, and there are always important points left on the cutting room floor. I hope you enjoy this peek behind the curtain of my development process.
Thanks for reading-
Robby
My Conversation with Joy Reid on MSNBC (Video and Talking Points)
Thursday night, I appeared on the final segment of Joy Reid’s MSNBC show, just before they broke for coverage of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. I appeared with fellow guest Irin Carmon, Senior Correspondent of New York Magazine, to talk about the connections between white Christian nationalism and opposition to reproductive rights, particularly the tight spot Republicans have gotten themselves into with their opposition to widely-popular assisted reproductive technologies like in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Even in longer segments like this one, there are always important points that we don’t have time to discuss. Here are the talking points I prepared ahead of the show:
NATIONAL TRENDS. Two thirds (64%) of Americans favor the legality of abortion, vs. one third who oppose.
Support has risen since the 2022 Dobbs decision.
Less than one in ten (9%) Americans believe abortion should be illegal in ALL cases.
STATES. According to PRRI's American Values Atlas, there is not a single state in the country in which more than 14% believe abortion should be illegal in ALL cases.
RELIGION. You can’t understand the fault lines over abortion today as a religious/secular divide. Most religious Americans favor the legality of abortion.
Only two major religious groups—white evangelical Protestants and Hispanic Protestants--have majorities opposing the legality of abortion. And combined they comprise only about 1 in 5 Americans.
White evangelical Protestants: 72% oppose legality of abortion, but only 17% say it should be illegal in ALL CASES.
The official stances of church bodies are not good indicators of where their constituents stand on abortion. Majorities of both Latino and white Catholics favor the legality of abortion.
PARTY.
Republicans: 62% oppose the legality of abortion, but only 15% say it should be illegal in ALL CASES.
AGE. At least six in ten Americans of every age group say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
68% of young Americans ages 18 to 29; but also
64% of those ages 30 to 49, 63% of those ages 50 to 64, and 62% of those age 65 and over.
POLITICAL SALIENCE. Since the Dobbs decision, Democrats view abortion as more politically salient than Republicans
Half (50%) of Democrats, compared to only 38% of Republicans, say that they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion.
Republicans (45%) are more likely to say that they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on immigration compared with fewer than three in ten Democrats (29%)
Abortion restrictions have also lost at the ballot box in Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky.
IVF. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll shows 86% support for keeping IVF legal for women.
Save the Date! #WhiteTooLong Paid Subscriber Virtual Event with Rev. Jim Wallis on March 12
Next Tuesday night (03/12/2024) at 7:30 pm ET, I’m hosting my second zoom event exclusively for paid subscribers: a conversation with my good friend Rev. Jim Wallis, author of the forthcoming book, The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy. Stay tuned, there will be more live author events for paid subscribers throughout the year.
I hope you’ll join us for this one-hour event. We’ll talk for about 40 minutes and then take questions from Zoom webinar participants for the final 20 minutes.
Here’s what I had to say about Jim’s important book:
Drawing on more than five decades of experience as a minister and activist, Rev. Jim Wallis sounds the alarm--arguing that the rise of white Christian Nationalism is not just another symptom of partisan conflict but a false white gospel that threatens to destroy both democracy and the integrity of white churches. At this hinge point of American history, this book is an important and urgent call for white Christians to undertake a new discipleship out of whiteness and to unequivocally declare their support for the equality of all.
How to register for the webinar (access for paid subscribers only):
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